How Long Does it Take to Clean a House?

“How long does it take to clean a house? How long for deep cleaning? And how long for speed cleaning, spring cleaning or maintenance cleaning?”

“LOL. How long does it take to clean a house? If I had a dollar for every time I get asked these two questions: How much does it cost to clean a house? And How long does it take to clean a house? I’d be rich.” says Angela Brown, The House Cleaning Guru.

There are lots of job variables we cover today on Ask a House Cleaner. Sponsors for this episode are Savvy Cleaner (Training & certification for house cleaners and maids.) HouseCleaning360 (a listing site partnering house cleaners with homeowners.) Savvy Perks (benefits for small business owners like house cleaners.) And My Cleaning Connection ( a resource hub for all things cleaning.)

Listen: How Long Does it Take to Clean a House?

Watch: How Long Does it Take to Clean a House?

Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer.

Question: How Long Does it Take to Clean a House?

“Hi, Angela. My name is Tammy Teague. I’m from Indiana. I have a question. Just wanted to know how long it should take to clean a three or four bedroom with three baths … I’m sorry, two full baths and one-half bath, how long should that take to deep clean? Thank you.”

How Long Does It Take for a Deep Clean?

Alrighty. If I had one dollar for every time I am asked this question, I would be rich. Why don’t you guys just go ahead and send me the money right now? LOL.

Here’s the answer. I cannot give you an honest answer that is direct and concise on how long it takes to clean a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house, and a deep clean. A maintenance clean versus a deep clean, they are two different types of cleaning. It’s like saying, how long does it take to cook a meal?

Okay. What is in the meal? What are the ingredients? Are you pulling out a can of tomato soup that you’re going to be mixing in there, or are you mashing the tomatoes from scratch? That’s the difference between having a maintenance clean and a deep clean. There are so many variables that go into how long it takes to clean a house.

How Long Does It Take for a Maintenance Clean?

Now, if you just said it’s maintenance-friendly, meaning it’s already had the deep clean. And it just needs a maintenance clean, it’s going to be about three hours to do that size of a house with one-person cleaning.

That’s going to be about average, just off the top of my head. Then you threw in the words ‘deep clean.’

Deep clean makes me ask what condition is the home in? We do deep cleaning the first time that we go to a customer’s house. We do that because as the house cleaner we don’t know your house.

This is the first time we’ve ever been to your house and we don’t know our way around.

We Haven’t Created a System Yet for Your House

There may be pockets in your house that collect more dust or have more traffic. Or they’re harder to clean, or there’s always spaghetti on the wall in that spot when we get there. We don’t know what those areas are.

The deep clean allows us to introduce our self to your home. We get to clean out all the nooks and crannies, and all the stuff that does not get done on a normal maintenance clean.

A deep clean is going to take a lot longer than a maintenance clean.

Once a house has been deep cleaned the maintenance clean should take about three hours.

I say three hours, but that’s like saying, “Now I’m going to make the next meal.”

In What Condition is the Home?

Again, what does that mean? How many people is the meal for? Where do we get the ingredients from? Do I need to go to the store and buy those ingredients? Are they already sitting in front of me waiting for me to cook the meal? And are they prepped and ready to use?

The reason I ask about prepping is this. If your house is ready for me to clean when I arrive, you don’t have to pay me to prep it.

This means you pick up the toys, and clothes and books, papers, food, trash, and bedding before I get there.

How Long Does It Take if More People Live There?

One of the variables is how many people live in the house. If you’re cleaning a house for five people, it’s going to take longer and cost more than the exact same house with one person. Especially if that person is a business professional who is never at home.

Now, throw into the mix, do they have pets? If the person has no pets, it’s going to take less time to clean and cost less than if they have three dogs and two cats and a bird and a goldfish.

What are the other things that are variables that you need to know about this person’s house?

How Long Does It Take if There are Hiccups?

Hiccups or monkey wrenches are a term we use when we have to work around an issue. Hiccups could be you trying to be quiet cleaning while a baby is sleeping. You can’t turn on the vacuum at will.

Or you have to clean a different part of the house that makes sense.

Maybe the home is full of homeschoolers and they are messing up the house faster than you can clean it.

There are a lot of unknown variables that if I just give you a time, like it takes three hours, that is a ridiculous thing to say.

That is just silly because we don’t know all the other elements that come along with that question.

How Long Does It Take for a Deep Clean with Hiccups?

How long does it take for a deep clean? That also is an unknown. I need to come to your house and I need to actually see because I don’t know. I don’t know the way that you live. No two families live the same way.

If I quote you three hours – but then get to your house and see it will take me ten hours, I need to plan for that.

And I need to bid the job in such a way that it’s profitable for me if it takes me three or four deep cleanings to get your house to my standard of excellence

I also have to budget the time it will take to clean your house into my schedule. I don’t want to do a rush job and skip anything or be sloppy.

How Long Will It Take? And How Much Will It Cost?

I love the questions. I get asked them dozens of times a day. How much should I charge, and how long does it take? Those are two questions that will never have an answer. Here’s why.

You can have two identical houses with the exact same floor plan. They have the exact same space. And you can put them on a street next to each other with different elevations.

This is where the front of the houses look different, but the inside, the guts of the house are identical. The stuff that people have inside those houses are different. The furniture is different. The way that they’ve decorated the house is different.

No Two Houses Are the Same – Even if They Are the Same

One person might be immaculate and the other person might have gobs of knickknacks. Then you had the families in there and the living styles and the way that these people operate in their homes. They are two completely different things.

So, to say, “You charged my neighbor X amount of dollars and it takes you X amount of time,” that’s true. But to offer you the same price at the same time would be ridiculous. Your living styles are as individualistic as you are. I love the question. I wish I had an answer. And I wish I had a dollar for every time that question is asked. Like I said, I’d be rich.

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